Company type | Subsidiary [1] |
---|---|
Industry | Computer security |
Founded | 2012 |
Founder |
|
Headquarters | , United States |
Services | Anti-virus, anti-malware |
Revenue | $189 Million(2021) |
Number of employees | 760 [2] |
Parent | Arctic Wolf Networks |
Website | Cylance.com |
Cylance Inc. is an American software firm based in Irvine, California, [3] that develops antivirus programs and other kinds of computer software that prevents viruses and malware.
In February 2019, the company was acquired by BlackBerry Limited for $1.4 billion. [4] [5] After the acquisition, it continues to operate as an independent subsidiary and will remain headquartered in Irvine, California.
In December 2024, Arctic Wolf has entered into an agreement with BlackBerry Limited to purchase Cylance. [6] BlackBerry will sell its Cylance assets to Arctic Wolf for $160 million of cash, subject to certain adjustments, and approximately 5.5 million common shares of Arctic Wolf. After allowing for the purchase price adjustments, BlackBerry will receive approximately $80 million of cash at closing and approximately $40 million of cash one year following the closing. [7]
Cylance was founded by Stuart McClure and Ryan Permeh in 2012. McClure was previously co-founder of Foundstone, a security consultancy. He sold Foundstone to McAfee in 2004, and became that firm's Chief Tech Officer. [8]
A July 2015 report indicated that Cylance had raised $42 million from investors including Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Dell, Capital One, and TenEleven Ventures. [8] It received another $100 million in June 2016 with lead investors Blackstone Tactical Opportunities (part of The Blackstone Group) and Insight Venture Partners. [9] They received an investment from In-Q-Tel in September 2015. [10] [11]
Operation Cleaver was a covert cyberwarfare operation allegedly carried out by the Iranian government against targets worldwide, specifically critical infrastructure entities. Cylance published a report about the operation in late 2014. Iranian officials rejected Cylance's conclusions, but the FBI tacitly confirmed them. [12] [13] [14]
In November 2016, a systems engineer evaluated 48 files of malware samples provided by Cylance for testing their protection system "Protect", and found that 7 of them weren't malware. [15] This led to an accusation that Cylance was using the test to look superior to its opponents by providing files that other products would fail to detect as malware. [16] In response, Cylance executives said that they used repackaged malware samples for testing.
McAfee Corp., formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American global computer security software company headquartered in San Jose, California.
Antivirus software, also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware.
Gen Digital Inc. is a multinational software company co-headquartered in Tempe, Arizona and Prague, Czech Republic. The company provides cybersecurity software and services. Gen is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock-market index. The company also has development centers in Pune, Chennai and Bangalore. Its portfolio includes Norton, Avast, LifeLock, Avira, AVG, ReputationDefender, and CCleaner.
Sophos Ltd. is a British security software and hardware company. It develops and markets managed security services and cybersecurity software and hardware, such as managed detection and response, incident response and endpoint security software. Sophos was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by Thoma Bravo in March 2020.
In-Q-Tel (IQT), formerly Peleus and In-Q-It, is an American not-for-profit venture capital firm based in Arlington, Virginia. It invests in companies to keep the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability. The name "In-Q-Tel" is an intentional reference to Q, the fictional inventor who supplies technology to James Bond.
Avast Software s.r.o. is a Czech multinational cybersecurity software company headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic, that researches and develops computer security software, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Avast had more than 435 million monthly active users and the second largest market share among anti-malware application vendors worldwide as of April 2020. As of 2018, the company had approximately 1,700 employees across its 25 offices worldwide. In July 2021, NortonLifeLock, an American cybersecurity company, announced that it was in talks to merge with Avast Software. In August 2021, Avast's board of directors agreed to an offer of US$8 billion.
Webroot Inc. is an American privately-held cybersecurity software company that provides Internet security for consumers and businesses. The company was founded in Boulder, Colorado, US, and is now headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, and has US operations in San Mateo and San Diego, and globally in Australia, Austria, Ireland, Japan and the United Kingdom.
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Kaspersky Lab is a Russian multinational cybersecurity and anti-virus provider headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and operated by a holding company in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1997 by Eugene Kaspersky, Natalya Kaspersky and Alexey De-Monderik. Kaspersky Lab develops and sells antivirus, internet security, password management, endpoint security, and other cybersecurity products and services.
Zeus is a Trojan horse malware package that runs on versions of Microsoft Windows. It is often used to steal banking information by man-in-the-browser keystroke logging and form grabbing. Zeus is spread mainly through drive-by downloads and phishing schemes. First identified in July 2007 when it was used to steal information from the United States Department of Transportation, it became more widespread in March 2009. In June 2009 security company Prevx discovered that Zeus had compromised over 74,000 FTP accounts on websites of such companies as the Bank of America, NASA, Monster.com, ABC, Oracle, Play.com, Cisco, Amazon, and BusinessWeek. Similarly to Koobface, Zeus has also been used to trick victims of technical support scams into giving the scam artists money through pop-up messages that claim the user has a virus, when in reality they might have no viruses at all. The scammers may use programs such as Command prompt or Event viewer to make the user believe that their computer is infected.
Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG is a German multinational computer security software company mainly known for its Avira Free Security antivirus software. Although founded in 2006, the Avira antivirus application has been under active development since 1986 through its predecessor company H+BEDV Datentechnik GmbH. Since 2021, Avira has been owned by American software company NortonLifeLock, which also operates Norton, Avast and AVG. It was previously owned by investment firm Investcorp.
Endgame provides a cyber operations platform supporting the detection, exploitation, and mitigation of cyber-threats. Endgame was started by executives from ISS.
Seculert was a cloud-based cyber security technology company based in Petah Tikva, Israel. The company's technology was designed to detect breaches and advanced persistent threats (APTs), attacking networks. Seculert's business was based on malware research and the ability to uncover malware that has gone undetected by other traditional measures.
Blackshades is a malicious trojan horse used by hackers to control infected computers remotely. The malware targets computers using operating systems based on Microsoft Windows. According to US officials, over 500,000 computer systems have been infected worldwide with the software.
Cyren Inc. was a cloud-based Internet security technology company that provided security services and threat intelligence services to businesses. It offered a range of services including web security, DNS security, anti-spam solutions, phishing detection, ransomware protection, URL filtering, malware detection, and botnet attack prevention. Cyren also provided endpoint protection for mobile devices and Internet of Things (IoT) gateways. Major clients included Microsoft, Google, Check Point, Dell, T-Mobile, and Intel. The company announced its closure in February 2023.
Operation Cleaver, as labelled in a report by American firm Cylance Inc. in late 2014, was a cyberwarfare covert operation targeting critical infrastructure organizations worldwide, allegedly planned and executed by Iran.
Lastline, Inc. is an American cyber security company and breach detection platform provider based in Redwood City, California. The company offers network-based security breach detection and other security services that combat malware used by advanced persistent threat (APT) groups for businesses, government organizations and other security service providers. Lastline has offices in North America, Europe, and Asia.
George Kurtz is an American businessman. He is the CEO and founder of the cybersecurity technology company CrowdStrike, and the founder and former CEO of Foundstone, a worldwide security products and anti-virus software company. He is also the author of the best-selling book of all time on cybersecurity, Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets & Solutions.